The New Indian Express: New Delhi: Saturday, 19 July
2014.
The Supreme
Court on Friday sought the Centre’s response on the issue of former ministers,
ex-MPS and retired bureaucrats occupying official bungalows. A Bench headed by
Chief Justice R M Lodha took suo motu cognisance of a letter written by former
CAG Vinod Rai alleging that 22 former Union ministers and retired bureaucrats
were illegally occupying government accommodation. The Bench appointed senior
advocate Shyam Divan as amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter.
Rai cited a
news report published on May 8 that named former ministers Lalu Prasad, A Raja,
S M Krishna, Mukul Roy, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Subodh Kant Sahai, Mukul Wasnik,
Harish Rawat and others as illegal occupiers of ministerial bungalows.
The list of
illegal occupiers was given by government in response to an RTI application
filed by activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal that stated that Raja resigned as
minister in November 2010, but retained bungalow 2-A, Moti Lal Nehru Marg.
Maran relinquished his post in July 2011, Bansal resigned in May 2013, and
Krishna has not been in the Union Cabinet since October 2012, but all occupied
Type VII or Type VII category houses. The unauthorised occupation of government
accommodation is in violation of the apex court’s last year verdict delivered
on July 7 in which it had allowed authorities to use reasonable force for their
eviction. It had also set a time-frame up to two months for the people
concerned to vacate the official accommodation after the end of their
entitlement period.
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